Book Review: Michael Crichton writing as John Lange, pt. 1

Before he became one of the world’s bestselling and most popular authors, with works adapted into blockbuster movies, Michael Crichton wrote paperback suspense novels under the pen name “John Lange.” Lange’s eight books, written between 1966 and 1972, are now back in print, re-edited and published on the renowned Hard Case Crime imprint. Today, I review three of them: “Zero Cool”, “Drug of Choice” and “The Venom Business.”

The reason I review three books in one article (a first on this site) is because it’s very likely I will review ALL the Lange books, making it a proper Trash Mutant John Langethon, and putting them into bunches seems like a better idea than making it a weekly thing for two months straight. Now that I shed some light on these fascinating editorial decisions, let's get back to Lange.

Michael Crichton wrote all these on the side, while in medical school, before his writing career really took off, but don’t think for a second that his talent isn’t yet in full display in these. The three books I review today are all very different, but each of them is a highly entertaining read and a great addition to the crime/pulp-centric Hard Case Crime line.

The first Lange work I've read is 1970's "The Venom Business", and it's the one that's the most down-to-earth out of the three. That's not to say it's plain or boring, though - the protagonist, Charles Raynaud is a snake handler and priceless artifact smuggler and quite a badass.

Raynaud is an unwilling pawn in a game of lies, plotting and scheming, played between three people: an old acquaintance of his, Richard Pierce, who is a rich and spoiled playboy and soon-to-be heir of a corporate empire; Pierce's femme fatale sexy stepmother, and his uncle, a creepy old doctor. When the playboy, Richard, turns 34, he will become the sole owner of the financial empire, due to a very peculiar last will left by his stepfather. The other two have their own plans, though. Each of them wants to use Raynaud to further their agenda, and the whole thing is masterfully written, keeping you guessing until the very last chapters. This book could make for a fantastic film script, but in all actuality, the same applies to the other two books as well.

Another great thing that adds to the excitement is the book's setting: we go from Mexico, to Paris, to the late '60s fashionable London. It's really something, and Crichton/Lange makes all these places seem real and rich when you read about them. In MY university days I didn't really do anything to brag about. Crichton found time to write globetrotting, thrilling suspense novels AND become a doctor... That's just depressing me now.

Speaking of doctors, both "Zero Cool" and "Drug of Choice" have an everyman type of protagonist, who also happens to be a doctor. If E.R. or his other works didn't give it away, Crichton sure is fond of doctors.

In "Zero Cool", Peter Ross is an american radiologist, on vacation in Spain. He's a naive fellow that fate puts smack dab in the center of a Bond-esque story. There are even some fantastic villains and henchmen here, with insane ways to murder people. You'd normally expect people like these to fight 007, but they're all after poor confused Ross here. I'd hate to spoil this book, but just the various bad guys here are a good reason to pick it up. "Memorable" doesn't even cover it.

This is a much more fast-paced story, and it's written with no shortage of tongue-in-cheek (some scenes here are almost straight-up comedy). Lange handles the style really well, though, and even if the protagonist is a bit dull, the book is a whole lot of fun and keeps you turning pages.

And then we get to "Drug of Choice", centering around an insane pharmaceutical conspiracy with an almost Orwellian scope.

This time around the doctor is Roger Clark, and he works in a Los Angeles hospital. Everything is fine until one day he gets a Hell's Angel patient, who seemingly fell into a coma while riding his bike. And then he started urinating in blue! He wakes up within 48 hours, doesn't remember anything and nobody knows what happened. Soon, more patients like this show up. Would you believe if I told you that it's all a bait for Dr Clark? And that there's an "Eden Island" involved, where all the tourists get drugged into thinking they're having the time of their lives? Well, that's just the beginning of it.

Clearly, this one is a little more science-fiction, but Crichton writes it and you believe every single word, because the man is a doctor, for chrissakes! With a premise like that, everything relies on the execution, and the execution is flawless. It's a perfectly good "there's nowhere to go, everybody is against me and everybody is watching me" type of thriller. I eat that stuff up.

As you can see, I'm really fond of these John Lange books. There's not one damn bad thing about them. Longtime readers should know how I am about good pulp fiction, and this is often even more than that. All of these are great reads. I went through these three books in about 6 evenings, and I can't wait to get the rest of them. Titan Books and Hard Case Crime did a great job publishing these early novels from a late great author (and look at these beautiful covers!). If you like fiction, you will like reading these. Add some John Lange to your life! Get these books!

Have you read any of the three above Crichton/Lange books? Planning to? What Michael Crichton work is your favorite? Sound off in the comments!